spiders 22 November 2008
I’m not great with spiders. I can tolerate them in the garden and I’m okay with the TINY ones anywhere, even in the house, BUT the big lads scare the bejingoes out of me. I think it’s that they move so quickly and silently..oh, and erratically (not good). When I was growing up in Galway and got my own bedroom it was the coldest one in the house and is still known as The Fridge to this day (my Mum now has the dubious pleasure of sleeping in it). Anyhow, the Fridge had a vent to the outside world and every so often the huge outdoor arachnids would wander in. Whatever about seeing them on the ceiling and not being able to sleep knowing they were there, to pull back the covers and discover one having a snooze between the sheets was an all out nightmare for me. The house in Dublin, where I now live (well, most of the time) was built in the 1860s and has plenty of wall cavities and the like for the big lads (who I am convinced are hairy and some really do have eyes out on stalks) and they saunter in and around the living areas late in the year, much to my considerable chagrin. We have a lot of wooden floors and these yokes are that big that I am convinced I can hear them making noise as they run about. I read somewhere these are the males looking for the females. As much as I have a bit of a phobia about spiders, though, I would never kill one (it’d take a club or cricket bat for some of the specimens round our way anyhow and I’d fear a charge of murder). If there’s a spider in the bath or sink (they really do seem to favour these spots – or are they just stupid and fall into them and can’t get out again?) I trap it in a glass and throw it outside. The tiny little chaps are supposed to mean money so they’re most welcome. And now I read that spiders are in space. Yup. Some orb-weaving spiders have been brought on-board the International Space station. Apparently one pair immediately went missing and the others spent the early days making really weird webs as zero gravity evidently affects them. However, a week in, one clever lad has started to make symmetrical webs. Strange, frightening, ugly, clever, adaptable creatures (with way too many legs)
